


There Was a Kid with a Head Full of Doubt

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Series: SPN Spring Fling 2014 [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Hope, M/M, Sad, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 18:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1520630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://spnspringfling.livejournal.com/">SpnSpringFling</a> 2014, for <a href="http://choc-freckles.livejournal.com/">choc_freckles</a>, prompt three: Dean Winchester/Castiel - "So. It's the end of the world. Again."</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Was a Kid with a Head Full of Doubt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [frecklesarechocolate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frecklesarechocolate/gifts).



> This was written for the fic challenge so it was written before [09.18](http://supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=9.18_Meta_Fiction) aired. Season 09 spoiler content and a warning for emetophobics.

"So. It's the end of the world. Again." Sam says.

Dean's beer bottle makes a hollow, airy sound when it leaves his lips. "Yeah."

"Any, uh. Any plans?" his brother asks.

"Yeah. This."

"So you're. You're gonna drink," Sam shrugs. "You're just gonna wait for it all to end again."

Dean's gaze wanders to the side and his fingers slide the empty beer to the edge of the bar. He pulls a fresh one forward as the bartender delivers it. He makes no additional comment.

Sam's smile is one of disbelief and slight disgust. "Wow. Okay."

"What do you want me to do, Sam? The last time I tried to save everybody, you woke up and told me you'd rather be dead. This seems like a safe bet," he motions to the bar at large.

"You're simplifying that and you know it," Sam's jaw clenches as a torrent of profanity and angry words hits the backs of his teeth and he doesn't let them loose.

He feels the wall come down between himself and Dean. He feels Dean prop it up solid and look away.

Sam leaves the bar.

«»

Dean follows later. Much later. And only because he stayed past last call and tried to force himself to attempt to pick up one of the ladies serving drinks.

He couldn't do it. He had no passion for it. He couldn't make himself do anything but drink.

He knows what Sam did after he gave up on him.  
Sam called Castiel.

Cas is leaning against the car, waiting.

Dean doesn't speak. He only gets in the driver's side and Cas invites himself into the passenger seat.

The drive is quiet. There's another bar that doesn't shut down for a few hours yet. But it's another hour out of the way itself. He steers toward the bunker. He doesn't want to go there if Sam will be there. But he can always hope that Sam has finally packed up and given up on him.

That would only leave Cas to contend with. And he still hasn't said anything.

«»

He barely holds the front door open wide enough for himself when they get there. Cas still slips in behind. Dean descends to his room, doesn't so much as glance at the dark hole where Sam's room sits with the door open.

Cas always asks. So it's conspicuous that he doesn't wonder aloud, 'Where's Sam?'  
It means he knows.

Cas follows him all the way to his bedroom.

Dean can't get drunk. It's been a problem. Cain's Mark is too powerful, makes him something that doesn't feel properly.

He thinks he's growing into a monster and he thinks he ought to care about that more. He ought to be distraught. Fighting. Fucking. Arguing. Something. Anything.

Instead, he thinks about leaving Sam be, here. He thinks about packing his own bags and skipping out on Sam for once, instead of waiting to be abandoned after the battle's won.

Yes, it's the end of the world.  
No, he doesn't care.

He must spend a too-long moment staring around at his room without touching anything or taking off his coat or shoes. Because Cas steps up behind him and touches the inside of his elbow and Dean lets himself be pulled around with one gentle hand.

"Sam says you won't come fight Abaddon with him. That he and Crowley are ready. That they've got a whole battalion of hunters and demons ready. He says you won't come with."

Dean doesn't respond.

"Dean I'm going to do something. It's going to be unpleasant but it will help. Will you let me help you?"

Dean thinks about this Mark. About the blade that Crowley's holding for him on the front line. About how the last thing he wants to do is meet his new intended destiny there.

He rolls up his sleeve and presents his arm to Cas. "How could you possibly help this?"

Cas must know what it is. Either he was told or he knew on sight, when Dean exited the bar. He's not surprised; only a little hurt makes his face fall further, pain and sympathy. It's a soft, sad look that Dean can't exactly feel when he looks at him. Like everything else right now, it means nothing. It simply _is_.

"I can't. I mean, I can but only a little. Do you even want that?" he asks, palm lifted and hovering over Dean's arm, leaving it entirely up to him.

Dean is too empty to answer. So he doesn't. He only lifts his arm into Cas's touch. This isn't someone who would harm him and he doesn't think anything would happen, anyway. Good or bad. He's too far deep in the well right now, hearing everything above in the echoes off stone.

It takes a long moment and a bright glow before Dean can sense a change. But suddenly, he feels _everything_.

It's awful. It's painful and overwhelming. It rushes his system.

He staggers, and Cas catches both his arms. Dean regains his feet quick enough to dash to the toilet and hurl up more than half of what he drank tonight.

The aches and bruises from recent fights sting under his skin. His old knees shocking with the impact on the tile floor and a headache pounding up in the back of his skull.

And Sam. Dear fuck. He's forced Sam into Crowley's company for the past few months. Forged them into partners. His brother, who was the Boy King, together with the King of Hell. What the fuck was he thinking?

He wasn't thinking, only acting. It all rushes in on him now. He wasn't thinking about any of this before except for the cacophony of white noise building in his own head. His desire to be as far from the blade as possible. Dean wants for this all to be over with; now, he can recognize that repulsion as _Cain's_ desire to be removed from the company of the blade. It helped Sam call Dean out of his murderous trance while it also filled him with the knowledge that nothing could stand against him with all this power in his hands.

He doesn't want this. God, he doesn't want this. He thinks he might be babbling that, wipes his face clean of alcohol sweat and the start of tears. He wants this to be over with. And he doesn't want to become what this thing is making him.

He jumped, when given the chance. He didn't think, he just took the Mark, the weapon that would help him stop the enemy, save the world. He _didn't think_. Sam was right. He hasn't been thinking.

He falls back to the bathroom wall and coughs, tasting bile and the liquid diet he's been on for days now.

Strangely, he realizes at this moment that he hasn't eaten. Hasn't had to. Not in a week.

What he fears most is that, while this dawns on him, so does the fact that he _didn't_ realize this because he is _hungry_. He's still not hungry. It's temporary, just a snap of relief, like Cas had said. He only realizes he is hungry because he still doesn't need to eat. Like in Purgatory. Like how all he had to do was run and fight.

But this isn't pure. This is impure, inhuman.

Castiel kneels next to him, now. He might have been calling Dean's name. He's saying it now, putting a hand to his leg where it's kicked out in front of him. His other hand lands on Dean's shoulder.

Where his own mark used to be.

"Will it go away? After? Will I be able to get rid of it, Cas?"

Cas dips his head close. "We will find a way."  
It sounds like a promise.

But that's still a 'no.' He can't just be rid of it, it won't be that simple. Though he doesn't think it's hopeless. He thinks that they'll work on it. That they'll have time in their stretched-out, messy lives to go on another mission to save somebody who should, by all rights, be long dead.

Dean doesn't let Cas pull him to his feet. He grabs for Cas's arms and demands his attention. "Don't let me do this. I mean it. Please. Don't let me turn into this, Cas. The things I've been doing lately? Shit. The things I'd been doing before. I'm not right. If it doesn't work out, if you can't stop me. Then you gotta put me down. Tell me you'll put me down," he begs.

And Cas. Well, Cas moves both his hands to Dean's face and those deadly hands keep Dean very, very still.

He says in that low, don't-fuck-with-me voice: "Under no circumstances."  
That is also a promise.

«»

They both do their best to get Dean dusted off and cleaned up. He rinses his mouth at the sink and then Cas drags him back to sit on his bed.

Cas sits next to him when he won't stay upright and steady on his own.  
Cas lets him fall into his side and stay there.

"I've done nothing but bad things," Dean laments quietly. "I'm such a fucking dumbass."

"Trusting," Cas reminds him. "You're trusting. And a bit injudicious." He looks down at the top of Dean's head where it leans against him. "We'll work on it."

"We've got a lot to work on."

"It's a long list," Cas agrees. He pulls his arm out from between them and wraps it around Dean.

The shock that Castiel delivered to Dean's soul brought it out from under the scar tissue that Cain's Mark wrapped him in. The reprieve won't last long but Dean needed to know he was still himself in there, underneath that mark.

Cas squeezes his fingers into Dean's arm, wraps his other hand around Dean's head and pulls him into a hug, tries to convey the same kindness and appreciation that Sam showed to him when they had hugged.

Dean's a little devastated right now. That might be the only reason why he allows it.  
Or not.

Dean pulls himself up and turns fully into Castiel, burying his head in the crook of his neck and wrapping around him tight. It would be pleasant if it didn't feel so desperate. He soothes his hands up and down Dean's back.

"I think I have to go meet Sam and Crowley," he says into Cas's neck, resigned. "The faster I get this over with..."

Cas nods. "I'll go with you," he says, and then amends, "under one condition."

Dean stiffens under his hands a little, a sting of rejection before he even knows what it means.

"You have to promise me -- on Sam. You have to promise in Sam's name that you won't sacrifice yourself to win. That you will _stop and think_ if you realize you're about to do such a thing."

"Sam hates me right now," Dean whispers, already feeling his heart going numb again.

"He will never hate you. He disagrees with you. You have some things to _work out_. That's not _hate_. Sam loves you. We love you. That hasn't changed."

The numbness freezes. Like the scar tissue crept back up and into him from his toes, through to his knees and hands and came to meet the Mark where it rests on his arm and it reached his center and it stopped.

He knows it won't hold forever. He closes his eyes and presses himself into Cas, can smell the spring air on his overcoat, can feel his hands -- his solid, reliable, healing hands. He grabs for that feeling, the zing of breathlessness and surprise. Just a pang of love, but it keeps him tethered to his humanity. The scar tissue builds, rising in him once again, and it webs around his heart but it can't shut it away.

If he were still himself, he would maybe lie down and rest his aching body next to Cas's heat. He might try to climb into his lap or kiss him or maybe even deny this. Maybe even drag up enough self-loathing to deny himself the satisfaction of being loved. Of being the object of someone else's love.

He can't now. Can't kiss Cas when it will mean less than it should.

But he could kiss Cas after. After they win and after, when they're all still alive.

They can work on it.

He isn't sure he can make the promise if he doesn't feel it. He searches himself, like Cas asked. He thinks about whether he can make this promise to do the same on the battlefield, to think in the heat of the moment before he acts.

He can. He can hear his heart over the sensory blur of the Mark.  
He is still human.

"You'll help me," he asks without it being a question. "And Sam will help me. And we won't die."

Cas pulls back to look at him. To assure him. "We will fight together. And we'll be alright."

"Then I swear to it."

Dean can't wait for Cas to look at him like this, after. When it's all done, he wants to see Cas this happy again. And more. He wants to feel that happy, too. He wants to come back alive to what's waiting for him. He wants to fix things with Sam.

He wants to put in the work.


End file.
